Nothing We Can't Gain
by Mrnime
Summary: The Doctor and Harry Potter are an unlikely couple of friends, but they have so much to teach each other, so much to learn.


**Title:** Nothing We Can't Gain  
**Author: **Mrnime  
**Rating: **G  
**Warnings: **Crossover  
**Fandoms/Characters/Pairing: **Harry Potter and Doctor Who, specifically the pairing of Harry and the Eleventh Doctor  
**Notes: **Takes place shortly after the seventh Harry Potter book and somewhere in the Doctor's future. Pseudo-request from some friends.

* * *

Harry Potter gazed out over the horizon. The sun was now behind him and three of the planet's eight moons could be seen hanging low in the sky. The planet – whose name he couldn't pronounce due to not having the proper anatomy for it, or so the Doctor said – had only a three-hour day. Three Earth hours, the Doctor said. That can seem longer when both night and day happen in those three hours. The Doctor said he was used to that kind of thing.

Oh, to be used to it, Harry thought, smiling as he noticed the moons were already just a little bit higher in the sky than when he last looked. He didn't see them move, but the Doctor said that's normal. One doesn't normally see slow-moving things move unless one is really focused on them.

The Doctor said, the Doctor said.

He was almost treating Harry childishly, except that he was very childish himself and he knew Harry had seen more than enough to not really be a child anymore. He was a grown man and very much had the air of one about him.

That and the Doctor said all sorts of ludicrous things.

"You say plenty of unusual things yourself, Harry," the Doctor said, sitting next to the young man on the crystalline beach.

"Was I thinking aloud?" Harry asked him.

"Yes," he said, laughing and scooping up some of the sand – which he insisted was just sand despite its odd appearance – and let it run through his fingers, making it catch the light in just such a way that it seemed to change from the lightest of blues to a gold-tinted indigo.

Harry had begun, of late, to feel like there was no point in going anywhere for a while. Everyplace seemed as good as anyplace and noplace seemed special.

This was, of course, before the Doctor. He hadn't expected a man in a funny blue box to come and take him away from all the things that were bothering him, and he hadn't expected running away from the empty feelings would ever get rid of them. But come the Doctor did and he and his magical – or, as he was reminded several times, not at all magical – TARDIS did and Harry truly wouldn't have imagined that travelling through time and space could be so astounding. The things he saw, and Harry was far from new to seeing amazing things, never ceased to astound him.

And the man who took him on these adventures astounded him further.

The stories he told, all the things he'd seen, the places he'd been.

Harry was enthralled by this Doctor.

And the Doctor seemed interested in Harry. And not in the Boy Who Lived, but in Harry, as Harry, as another important human being among all the other, equally important human beings.

It was something Harry could really appreciate. He had gotten used to people treating him as someone special for who he was and what he'd done, what he'd survived.

But the Doctor treated him as someone special for just being Harry.

"There'll never, in all of time and space, be another person just like you," he told him. "In all my travels, I've never met someone who wasn't unique. And you changed the world, Harry. But doesn't everyone in their own way? You humans are so small right now, but your actions will make you… so great."

Harry smiled. He liked that the Doctor always talked about these things like he knew, and Harry supposed he did know. The Doctor had been around the future, had seen what humanity was destined for.

"Do you ever get lonely?" Harry asked him, genuinely curious.

"Of course I do," the Doctor replied, leaning back in the sand, arms behind his head. "That's why I take people along on these trips, as my companions. You're all so… small but when you see what's out there, see the universe for what it is, you get bigger, you see how brave and wise you can be."

"I think I like the sound of that."

"Even though you've already shown a lot of bravery? Proven yourself wise?"

"I can be better, can't I?"

He smiled. "Yes. Yes, you can. And maybe, if we do this properly, you can be happier, too."


End file.
